Recorded live on October 20, 1972 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium during the critically acclaimed Ziggy Stardust tour, this show features 18 Bowie classics including "Ziggy Stardust," "Life on Mars?" "Space Oddity," and "Suffragette City." The first bootlegs of this show surfaced in 1973, but on July 8, 2008, the officially titled David Bowie - Live Santa Monica '72 will be released for the first time. This version is the final chapter in the life of the original Santa Monica bootleg that had many different titles and was released in various formats.

"I can tell that I’m totally into being Ziggy by this stage of our touring. It’s no longer an act; I am him. This would be around the tenth American show for us and you can hear that we are all pretty high on ourselves. We train wreck a couple of things, I miss some words and sometimes you wouldn’t know that pianist Mike Garson was onstage with us. But overall I really treasure this bootleg. Mick Ronson is at his blistering best." - David Bowie, 2008